by Fr. Emerardo Maningo, CSsR (Emy)
We had the module on “Mission of Evangelization and Dialogue” facilitated by Fr. Jeyaraj Rasiah, SJ from April 30th to May 2nd. The following reflection is made after his presentation of the module.
- We need to go back to “Jesus before Christianity,” (try, anyway). The biblical evidence seems to point to the following: Jesus of Nazareth preached, not himself, but the Basileia – the restoration of God’s reign, his Abba’s reign. From his experience of God as Abba, he knew that he was sent to proclaim and build the Basileia. This was how he read God’s project to be. And, he lived and died for the Baseleia, as Abba’s will. He was enabled to proclaim it, suffer and die for it because of the Holy Spirit. As a human being, he could not have done what he did without the Spirit. So, this is the Trinitarian formula of God’s project.
- For Jesus, the Basileia is fullness of life (John 10:10). Fullness of life could be understood as (a) all dimensions of life in this world (e.g. economic, political, cultural, spiritual, etc.) and (b) fullness of life in the parousia. It is “both-and,” not “either-or.”
- The early followers of Jesus, right after his resurrection, would have found it a complete disaster to promote the Basileia (as understood above, not the spiritualized version). It could only be construed as an open challenge to the existing Roman reign, and would be crushed immediately.
- Their need was to preach the kerygma, namely, that this Jesus of Nazareth died and rose again. Above all, that he was divine. They had to do this. How could they promote a new “religion” which was founded by a lowly carpenter from an unknown village called Nazareth; who was crucified as a common criminal? All founders of religions have better credentials than that.
- So, by going back to the “ad fontes,” as admonished by Vatican II – there could be no more primary source (understood as FIRST chronologically, and first in “hierarchy” of values or importance in its content) than the above biblical evidence (see numbers 1 and 2 above). Today, it seems to me that the call to mission is to promote the Basileia. This is one way of understanding the mission of the Church. So, one way to understand salvation is to be involved in the building up of the Basileia in this world in ALL its dimensions, together with the eschatological hope.
- With the above understanding of salvation, we have to dialogue, not only with other religions. We have to dialogue with all groups of people who are building up “this world” (understood as all peoples, ecology and the cosmos) as a better place for all. Many of these “builders” do not belong to any religious group. In fact, some of them are “allergic” to religious groups. But, if they are genuinely building up this world, are they not also involved, in some way, in building up the Basileia? So, I STRONGLY SUGGEST THAT OUR DIALOGUE MUST INCLUDE NON-RELGIOUS GROUPS.
- So, the first project of ALL GROUPS (religious and non-religious) must be a DIALOGUE OF LIFE. This means being FRIENDS with all groups (or as many groups as possible, considering our human limitations). And, once trust and friendship is established, they decide, together, about what aspects of the building of a better world they could attend to, separately and together. These common projects could be CELEBRATED in some kind of “liturgy” (for want of another term) that is acceptable to all concerned. Of course, each group can also go back to its own respective grouping and celebrate the project in line with the “God of their understanding” or of some other “non-divine” force, etc.
- Our Church can be truly Asian, only if it builds the Basileia in response to the needs of Asia TODAY (Asian and local), irrespective of whether these Asians belong to religions or not.
- Then, out of the “praxis” of building the Basileia, we (the Asian Roman Catholics) could come up with our uniquely Asian liturgies, Asian Structures, Asian theologies, etc. Of course, we take into account aspects of our “Tradition” and the “Scriptures” that are related to our unique Asian experience. In other words, do not start with making Asian (inculturating) our liturgies, Church structures, theologies, etc. The first step in inculturation must be to “Go” (“Euntes”) into the Asian situation/context first. The rest follows. The preparation for the jump “into the depths” of the Asian reality should be a simple recap of numbers 1 and 2 above; do not make the invitation too complicated; with too many theological distinctions that might be “premature.” The intricacies will be dealt with AFTER the jump into the common experience has been made.
- The phrases, “The person of Jesus is the Basileia,” “Jesus has the fullness of revelation,” “The Spirit is recognized in all good that is done by non-Jesus believers,” etc. have to be nuanced properly. To be honest, I would not go into this exercise BEFORE enough Asians will have had a sufficient number of common experiences in building the Basileia in the Asian context. Then, each religious and “non-religious” group could review their understanding of God (or whatever force of good – for those who cannot accept the God-talk). If something is genuinely human and genuinely good for the universe, then, it is good. Let each group attribute this good to the “God of their understanding” or to the force/reality of their understanding. Who knows what would really happen when we share, not our cherished existing “beliefs” but the “changed or modified” beliefs that might come from each group, as a result of several common concrete experiences of building up the Basileia, or some kind of a better world or universe (for non-believers).
group picture with Fr. Jeyaraj, sj
